So I think I like Jim's idea about keeping a daily journal of some kind to record my thoughts in japanese (and get corrections). Hopefully, this is all the english I will have written here. Well, here's to improvement.

I don't think there's any problem with practice diaries written in Japanese.

Marquis: You seem to be switching between polite and plain forms quite a bit. Choose one and stick to it. Also, いつ is purely a question word, you can't use it in the sense, "When thus and such happened, I did something or other." For that sense, you need to use と or とき or some such after the verb of the dependant clause. Finally, 遅すぎる conjugates like an ichidan verb; you can't make it past tense by adding でした.

Last edited by richvh on Thu 03.22.2007 7:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Like Rich already said, try not to switch between different forms. I mean, "nakya" is a very casual, slang version of nakereba narimasen so if you're using the masu form it doesn't really make sense to use this. You can mix the two forms a little bit, but it has to be in a 'good' way. Like 昨夜、tjpのチャットと訪問しました。かなり楽しかった seems pretty ok, even if you didn't put the desu at the end of tanoshikatta.
But in general stick to one or the other.

Two muffins were baking in an oven. One turns to the other and says "sure is hot in here." The other replies "AH TALKING MUFFIN!"

I'm sorry about all the changes. I'm trying to pick one tone and stick with it, but my education with grammar is quite fragmented, so I just go here and there without thinking these kind of things through.

Thank you very much for all of your gentle corrections (not an ounce of sarcasm, by the way), rich先生. You are an wonderful teacher. I need to get more into thinking the way japanese people think before writing sentences. I don't think I can take my japanese where I want to without that.

音楽を聴いたり、日本語を勉強したり、チャットしたり、手紙を書いたりします。
You don't (in most cases) use polite forms in the middle of a sentence. The polite form goes at the end of the sentence, in this case します. By the way, you used a non-past form, is this your plans for the day, or what you did? If the latter, use しました.